Number 2130: Raven Hood

The Raven is a modern day Robin Hood. Modern in 1941, that is. He robs the bad guys and gives to the needy. Far from being simple there are moral issues. The Raven is the disguise of Police Detective Sergeant Danny Dartin. In cahoots with Danny in his sub rosa activities as a masked robber are his assistant, Mike, and Lola Lash, the daughter of the Police Chief.  The Raven, as Danny, has sworn to uphold the law, yet he is breaking it. And robbing the rich to give to the poor is a bit complicated. For instance, to begin this episode, from Lightning Comics, Vol. 2 No. 2 (1941), the Raven drops in (literally, see above) on an upscale soiree and robs Mamma Ravel, “the biggest jewel thief in the country.” While his actions seem honorable, taking the jewels from Mamma and giving them to the poor, what about the people from whom Mamma stole the jewels? They were probably reimbursed for their losses by their insurance companies, another link in the dubious morality of the Raven’s actions.

Then the Raven goes up against another robber gang, the Green Hoods, who hijack the loot he so self-righteously stole, just perpetuating the cycle. It’s no wonder this stuff gives me a headache.

The Grand Comics Database does not guess who wrote or drew this tale.

Number 2109: Taking a Whiz into the future

Whiz Wilson doesn’t appear to have a first name other than Whiz. At least the website, Public Domain Superheroes credits him with that name. Whiz lives up to his name by whizzing into the future, which he did in a handful of adventures in early Sure-Fire Comics and Lightning Comics.

I mentioned in a Whiz Wilson posting from 2014 why I would be shy about visiting the future. You can see that by using the link below.

From Lightning Comics Vol. 2 Number 2 (1941). The Grand Comics Database has no guesses for the writer and artist.

In year 6000 Whiz Wilson has a dictator sign an eternal peace treaty! Just click on the thumbnail.

Number 1740: Whizzing into the future

Whiz Wilson is able, via his Futuroscope, to travel in time. That is science fiction, but I often feel I’m visiting a place called the Future. Watching my fellow citizens with little devices in their hands, sending and receiving messages while ignoring the rest of the world makes me feel out of my own time. Welcome to the brave new world! Personal opinion, anyway...I have a cell phone, yet have never texted a message. 

In Lightning Comics #5 (1941) Whiz visits Florida in the year 3000, and according to one man he confronts, it is a world where war and Great Depressions are a thousand years in the past. In the very next panel that perfect Florida is invaded by giant robots. Is Whiz’s timing lucky, so he can help repel “madman” Baron Krawman with his army of mechanical men, or is Whiz the cause? My theory is that by entering the future Whiz has altered it. The idyllic world is suddenly one in danger. Whiz should help out and end the menace. If my theory is correct, he indirectly caused it.

If I was a visitor in 2015 from, say, 1941, perhaps by being out of my own time my presence in an era in which I do not belong would change the future so the cell phone was not the center of so many peoples’ lives. I wouldn’t have to worry about walking or driving amongst so many distracted and self-absorbed people.

Number 1733: Flash Lightning goes to the gas chamber!

This past March, in Pappy’s Number 1706, I showed a story of the villain, the Mummy, from Lightning Comics #5 (1941). Flash Lightning conquered Professor Vatz, the scientist who put on mummy bandages and coated himself with “radium paint” to make himself invincible. Professor Vatz is now in prison, but is given enough freedom to make himself some gas bombs, re-outfit himself in gauze bandages and re-coat himself in radium paint. He is even in possession of a gun that shoots nitroglycerin bullets. Huh. Must be one of those cushy federal prisons, like Club Fed.

There are also other actors in this drama: the warden’s daughter, a prisoner who claims he was framed, and at least one African-American extra, a prisoner who pops out of the first panel of page 11. Just making note of it, and also that it is of its time, almost 75 years ago. And for some reason that is also the page that artist Jim Mooney signed.

From Lightning Comics #6 (1941):

Number 1706: Flash Lightning: Mummy’s Day

This typical early superhero tale from Ace’s Lightning Comics #5 (1941) has a mad professor who wraps himself in mummy bandages, then covers them in radium paint to “protect myself from common weapons” without naming the weapons. Guns? Knives? A couple of sticks of dynamite? And how would radium protect him? I have commented before on at least one other Flash Lightning story that sometimes logic is lacking.

There are some howlers...removing an ancient Egyptian mummy’s bandages as easily as unwrapping an Ace bandage (an appropriate brand under the circumstances) from a sprained ankle. And Flash admitting, “Either I’ve lost my punch or the radium coating is protecting him!” The story is of its era...a bunch of wild and improbable occurrences going off in sequence until a final panel which asks, “Will the Mummy ever stalk again?” Well, of course. If they ask the question then the next one has already been written and drawn! And it was. The sequel was in the next issue.

But wait...I don’t want you to believe there isn’t something redeeming about this tale. The artwork is presumed to be by Jim Mooney, one of the better artists at that early stage of comic book history, at the beginnings of his long career.

There was a point when Flash Lightning’s name was changed to Lash Lightning without any explanation. Here are a couple of Lash Lightning stories which by coincidence are both about werewolves. Just click on the thumbnails.